The rough ride, p.26
The Rough Ride, page 26
And he wanted to relax, wanted to sleep. Wanted to just hold on to her and breathe for a minute, but he didn’t know how to do that.
Because sometimes everything seemed fine, and the night was still, and there wasn’t a fight, and the next morning someone was just gone, and they never came back.
And when you thought things couldn’t get worse, you were usually wrong. That’s what he had learned.
That’s what he had learned well.
So no matter how good it felt, no matter how tired he was, he knew he couldn’t drop that wall. He knew he couldn’t relax.
“I’ve got some work yet to do,” he said, knowing his voice sounded rough.
“It’s dark out,” she said.
“I know. I know. But... I gotta find a way to make it so we can pay for our portion of this. I don’t want your sisters to not get what they need.”
“Look, Fia might just have to wait. She might. That isn’t your fault. That’s just the reality of the situation.”
“I bet that she won’t see it that way.”
“Well, that’s too bad. She and I have a difference of opinion on this. In that I think the work you’re doing on the ranch needs to take priority. I stand with you on this.”
“Thank you.”
“So. Whatever work you’re doing... I’m going to go with you.”
His chest went tight, and he looked at her, all bright eyes staring up at him. “Alaina...”
“What?” A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Do you have to admit now that you were trying to avoid me?”
“I...” He shook his head.
“You do that. We get closer and you pull away. And you got mad, and you tried to push me away. Gus... I’m really sorry that I messed up. With the room. I didn’t know that there was stuff. I didn’t know that...”
“Come on,” he said. “Get dressed. Come with me. We’ll get out the ranch financials and have a look. This is your place too.”
And she looked so delighted by that, it made something in his chest hard. And then she got out of bed and put his T-shirt on, which barely came to the top of her thighs, and when she turned around he could still see the little crease right where her thighs met her ass. And if this was getting dressed to her, then he wholeheartedly approved. He put his jeans on, and didn’t bother with a shirt, and he could feel her staring at him, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like that too.
They went down to the new kitchen table, one of the many new things she had gotten, and he got out the ledgers for the ranch. “We just need to see what we can afford. That doesn’t go into the general pot. I’d like to not have a fight with your sisters, actually.”
She stared at him, her eyes luminous. And then she leaned across the table, putting her hand over his, and kissed him on the mouth. He closed his eyes and reveled in it. Luxuriated in the moment. How many moments like this had he ever had in his life? Quiet calm and a connection with another person?
“Gus,” she said. “I love you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHE HADN’T MEANT to say that. On the heels of this crazy fight they’d just had, right after they’d made love, and he’d tried to pull away from her again. But something had to change. And she’d realized that when they were trapped in that storm of Gus’s own making.
They got closer, he retreated and she let him. She never did anything to change it. To push them to a new place.
And she wanted to change that. Needed to. So someone had to take the first step. To change what they were. To change what they did.
“Alaina... You don’t have to say that.”
“It’s true. I do. I’ve fallen in love with you over these last weeks. And I wish... I wish I could say that I always did. I always cared for you. My mom said something to me... I talked to my mom. She said something to me about the fact that we had a special connection. And I think that is true. I wanted to believe that I always felt something. But I didn’t. I had to change. I had to grow up. I had to figure out what was really important.”
It was uncomfortable, this. To put herself out there, to admit all of these things. All of these feelings. But if she didn’t admit it, then what? And what was the point of it? The point of any of it, or the lesson there? If she didn’t grow, if they didn’t change...why were they doing this? That was what she kept coming back to.
He just sat there, staring straight ahead, his jaw set like granite, his eyes unreadable.
And for a minute, she thought this might be it. She thought she might’ve pushed him away completely. Because wasn’t that how it kept on going? Advance, retreat. She moved forward and he moved back, and that was the way it had been.
“You love me?”
The question was asked softly, but intensely.
“Yes,” she said. “And before you ask, I didn’t fancy myself in love with Travis, not even a little bit.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” he said.
“Well, I just want to make it clear.”
“It isn’t a thing for me. That guy. I don’t think about him. I don’t care about him. He doesn’t matter.”
That made her feel good. It was hardly a declaration, but it was something. And she would take that. Yeah, she would damn well take it.
“Do you want to know what it means to me? That I love you.”
He leaned back in his chair, his palms flat on the table. And she could see that he desperately did want to hear it. But that he was also guarding himself against it.
It was the strangest thing, to be able to feel the wall that he put up between them. Like a physical thing, even though he was sitting there. She just had to hope her love made it over the wall.
“It means I’m committed to this. To us. And means I want to sleep in your room every night. It means that you make my heart flutter when I look at you. And even just when I think about you. It means that I can’t imagine another man touching me. And I can’t imagine a different future. Not now. I ache with it. With what I feel for you. With my regret over all the things I didn’t know before. About myself, about you. About the world.
“I had this idea that there was no space for me, and... I didn’t even know what kind of space I wanted. How can you know what you want when you don’t know yourself?”
“That sounds like some kind of new age stuff.”
“It’s not. If you sit down in the quiet and you listen to your heart, you know what it tells you. But I never wanted to sit down in the quiet. Because I was afraid of it. And I just don’t feel as afraid now.”
“Alaina, I... I’m going to tell you something, and you’re going to think it makes me a bastard. And it does. But there’s not a whole lot I can do about it, and I’m going to give it to you honestly. I like that you love me. But I can’t give it back.”
His words were like a sword being driven straight through her chest. And she knew that he wasn’t going to explain, not in the depth that she wanted him to. She loved him. He had changed her. Fundamentally. What she thought about herself, what she wanted. What she wanted for her life. And he wanted to keep that wall up. She was welcome to continue to lob her love over to the other side, but he wasn’t going to open the gates.
But she wanted him. She wanted this life. She wanted to have this baby with him. And it would be okay. Because he was Gus. It would be okay because he had always been there, and he would continue to be.
She could handle this.
At least he was being honest. At least he wasn’t pretending. Hadn’t her dad pretended with her mom for years? Hadn’t he pretended to be faithful, to be a husband who was invested in her and in the kids, only to just flake out one day?
“Okay,” she said.
“That’s it?”
“Gus, when are you going to get it into your head that you’re not going to drive me away? I’m not afraid of you, and you can stop growling every five seconds and trying to make it so that I will be. I’m not weak. I love you. So... I can handle that. I can handle you.”
And it felt a little bit sad. To say those words to him. I can handle you. When what she wanted was so much more. Maybe it will change...
That was dangerous. But she would rather have dangerous with him than be safe without him, and whatever that said about her... It didn’t matter.
“I want to be a husband and wife. Not this... We married each other for convenience and are sleeping together sometimes, and they’re two separate things. You and me. The same bed. The same room. And you can hold my hand when we go to family things, and maybe I’ll sit on your lap the way that Nelly sits on Tag’s lap.”
His jaw went firm.
“You don’t hate that,” she said.
“No,” he said.
And that made her smile a little bit, because things weren’t as grim as he was acting. Not if he actually wanted those things.
It didn’t really matter what he gave. That was the thing. Because it was everything he was. That was what she told herself. He was a good man. And he deserved this. He deserved for someone to love him.
“I really do love you,” she said.
And he growled, pulling her forward and kissing her. Kissing her and kissing her like they hadn’t just made love with an intensity so bright it had threatened to burn down the house. Consume them both in a fire that wouldn’t end.
That might not leave scars on the outside, but had definitely left her changed inside.
She decided to take this. To take this intensity from him. Because it might be all she got.
Because she might never hear the whole story of those books that he’d read to his brothers, or why those old toys hurt so much.
So she would have to take what she could get.
Because she would rather have some of him than none of him at all.
* * *
SHE LOVED HIM. She fucking loved him. He had been sitting with that ever since last night. And it was... Well, it was something he was pretty damn thrilled with, he had to admit.
She loved him. How long had it been since another person had loved him?
And she did. Alaina. His pretty Alaina. So beautiful and perfect and everything. Alaina.
He needed her to change that room, though. And she was welcome to move in with him.
He probably should do it himself. Get rid of all that shit in there, actually set all that childhood stuff on fire. He’d thought about it before. It seemed poetic. His own dad had tried to get rid of him with fire, why not sort out all those bad memories the same way?
Eventually. Eventually, he would. And in the meantime, he would just focus on...on having her. Alaina McCloud.
She had stayed with him all night last night. And he’d woken up with her in his arms. His favorite thing to do.
And there was no reason to have all their things separated.
“My sister wants to know if you’ll come help out at the farm store,” Alaina said.
“What?”
“Fia called. She was wondering if we could come by and help do a little bit of labor on the farm store. She figures the more that we can all do, the more money that it’ll save. And she figured since you’re the reason she’s not getting all of her money...”
“Sweat equity?”
“Yes. But she said she would make you a pie.”
“Well. I guess I can’t really turn that down.”
“You could. But it would be churlish. Especially considering you were trying to figure out ways to cut corners here. Maybe you’ll be able to meet in the middle.”
“Maybe.”
“Actually, I know you can meet in the middle. If both of you try.”
“I thought you were on my team,” he said.
“I am,” she said. “I love you, remember?”
And he took that and held it to his heart like the greedy SOB he was.
“Yeah. For some reason.”
They finished out the rest of the day, and at evening, headed on over to Sullivan’s Point, where he endeavored not to grumble about the fact that he was going to be doing more work. Considering he’d already done what felt like enough work for the day. But she’d asked him to. Then hell, she’d said she loved him, so he figured he ought to show up when she needed him to.
When he got to the farm store, he was surprised to see not just the Sullivan sisters, but a couple of Garretts as well.
Wolf and Sawyer were there, along with Evelyn and Violet.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Sawyer returned.
He hadn’t talked to Sawyer this much in years. It was strange, the way Alaina had changed everything. He had noticed the changes to the house. He had noticed her being in his bed. But slowly, she was changing the way he interacted with the people around him, and that was perhaps the most surprising thing of all.
And he felt... He didn’t really know what to call it. Something lighter in his chest.
He would’ve said that he didn’t want to connect with anyone. But she didn’t make it feel so hard.
Maybe it was watching her do it. Maybe it was just wanting to make her smile. But it didn’t seem like a chore. Or a task.
“What’s the objective?”
“Getting the wood paneling up on the wall,” Sawyer said. “We can do it real quick if we all pitch in.”
“Sounds a good plan.”
And they went to work, putting up the panels, swinging hammers, and he felt...pride. To be doing this in front of her. To be building something for her family. Giving her something. He protected her all this time, but he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever given her anything.
But her family mattered to her, and she had pledged her allegiance to him anyway. Which made him work just a little bit faster.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“DAD CALLED.”
Alaina looked at Fia. “Oh.”
“Yeah. I guess he heard that you were expecting.”
“But he didn’t call me,” Alaina said.
“No. He didn’t. He called me, because he figured...”
“What? You’re not any nicer to him than I am.”
“No. I’m not. Sometimes I think he calls me for that reason. To get a little bit of a scolding. Because I don’t know. Maybe it makes him feel like he’s reflected and changed a little bit. I probably shouldn’t give it to him. It’s probably too satisfying.”
Fia picked up a nail gun and pressed it against one of the wood panels, firing it in in one shot.
“I’ve pretty much given up,” Alaina said. “On Dad ever... On him ever having a relationship with me again.”
“I know,” Fia said. “I’m just going to be mad forever that that’s the case.”
“Mom is excited.”
“I know,” Fia said.
“You don’t have to protect me from this,” Alaina said. “It is what it is. You didn’t cause it, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.”
“Maybe not. But I have to carry all of the issues from it, don’t I? Don’t we all. I just... Alaina, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. About how this wasn’t your dream. About how you had to go out and get something for yourself. And I feel like this whole thing with Travis...”
Travis. How funny. He had been the catalyst of this whole thing. And he just didn’t matter anymore.
She just didn’t think of him anymore.
“I feel responsible for it. All of it. I feel like I did something, and I should’ve just... I should’ve listened to you more. But I get so caught up in my own thing. And trying to prove that I can fix this. In trying to prove that I can save it. But I don’t need Dad, and I don’t need to sell it the way that Mom thought. And I don’t remember, that you were so young when all of that happened. I don’t remember that you’re probably hurting and missing things and... I feel it is my fault. That you went and got pregnant, and now you... feel like you have to be married to Gus and...”
“I love Gus,” she said, feeling her face get hot when she said it.
And Fia just gaped at her. “You...you love Gus?”
“Yes. I do. I love him. He is the most wonderful man that I could ever have asked to be with. And you don’t need to bear responsibility for anything that I chose to do. We’ve all got issues. You haven’t gone and gotten yourself pregnant, have you?”
Fia laughed, a hollow sound. “No. But then, like you said, we all have our issues. I just don’t think that I could... I don’t trust anyone.”
“In what way?”
“How do you trust them to stay? Because it’s easy to remember Dad the way that he is now. Such a flake. And so disinterested. But he wasn’t. And that’s what scares me. How can you have a guy who seems one way, and then he turns into something totally different? It haunts me. And I can’t let it go. I don’t think I ever could.”
“Well, Gus is... He’s Gus. I mean, he takes care of me, he...”
“Does he love you?”
“He hasn’t said it,” Alaina said.
She felt a little bit irritated at herself for exposing Gus like that. And she would not go a step further and tell Fia they had talked about it, and that he’d outright said he couldn’t. Fia wouldn’t understand. She’d judge Gus too harshly, in ways he didn’t deserve.
“Why hasn’t he?”
“Fia. If you think that we have daddy issues...”
“I know his dad was abusive.”
“His dad burned him, Fia.”
And she thought back to all that rage that he had expressed the night she’d said she loved him. All that pain. The lengths that his father had driven him to. The violence.
She felt so bad for him. He was a man who had been pushed into an impossible situation.
How was he supposed to handle things? How was he supposed to feel about anything?
“He could say it,” Alaina said. “He could say it and not mean it. Just make me feel better. But he hasn’t done that. And he’s always been there for me.”
